SCHOOL OFFICIALS WERE TRIGGER-HAPPY

THE HARTFORD COURANT

Colchester school officials overreacted when they called in police to handle a school incident involving a toy gun. The seventh-grader who brought in the water pistol made a mistake. He deserves punishment, but he doesn't deserve to be arrested, with all the related traumas.

The 14-year-old took the squirt gun, which resembles a semiautomatic handgun, to the William J. Johnston Middle School to show to friends. Other students spotted the gun, not knowing it was a fake, and told their parents. Parents alerted the school. That much was understandable. Their concerns were justified because they didn't know the gun was a toy. Their children were scared. They would have been irresponsible if they hadn't alerted authorities.

The problem snowballed from there. School officials found the gun and called police, who arrested the young man for breach of the peace -- a misdemeanor. That put him in the same category as a bunch of drunks in a bar fight. Yet he didn't threaten anyone and he didn't knowingly frighten other students. He should be reprimanded and disciplined for foolishly bringing an inappropriate item to school. Water pistols don't belong in a classroom. Toys don't belong in school.

But the arrest went too far. The youth doesn't need to be taken through the frightening process of being charged with a crime and being answerable to juvenile authorities. His parents shouldn't have to go through the worry and trouble. This was a water gun, after all.

With all the fuss, the young man undoubtedly knows he made a mistake. School officials have plenty of other options to make sure he gets that point. That's what they should have used. They turned what could have been a useful lesson on appropriate school behavior into overkill.